I'm really looking forward to receiving my package tomorrow. As far as rules are concerned, I'm happy to see another installment of the OW rule set. Those worked fine for me.

The main reason I'm excited is new art, the new Sector and the different Approach on character creation. I'll be gamemastering in my first DH2 scenario over the Weekend, running a bunch of new players and my DH1 Group through a rerun of Damned Cities.The guys are excited as well...

This is a forum for discussing said opinions, right? And I bring up asking people in the street because I pretty strongly believe that the negative reaction to the dice has more to do with unwillingness to consider something new and different than it does with complaints about te dice being convoluted. Saying that the probability turns out wonky is a valid enough complaint. Saying that one kind of weird dice is more convoluted than another is not a valid argument.

This is a forum for discussing said opinions, right? And I bring up asking people in the street because I pretty strongly believe that the negative reaction to the dice has more to do with unwillingness to consider something new and different than it does with complaints about te dice being convoluted. Saying that the probability turns out wonky is a valid enough complaint. Saying that one kind of weird dice is more convoluted than another is not a valid argument.

There is such a thing as taking it a bit to far. They gave the example of "normal" people not knowing what a d10 is. Technically all the pollyhedral dice are the same principle as a six sided, just with more sides. D6: six sides, numbers corresponding to the numbe of sides. same for a D20.

Now let's take a look at WFRP and EotE : polyhedral dice- no problem, simple enough, but once you start to add in the diffrent symbols and depends what color dice you roll things get more complex. ( white is good, black is bad, green is safe, red is "risk oriented" blue diece with a hammer on it... i don't have clue)

I have a rule: if you can explain what you have to roll or if a roll is good or bad in one (short) sentence it's good, otherwise it is complex (not nessasarily bad, just complex) for example:

D&D: you roll your d20, add/substract bonus/penalties to beat a target number. you roll higher than said number = good.

OWOD: roll a number of D6's based on your abilities. a six is a succes, a one is bad and removes one succes. You need to roll a set number of successess based on the dificulty of what you are trying to do.

EotE is actually really elegant. There are 3 good dice and 3 bad dice with 3 good symbols and 3 bad symbols. 2 of the three symbols cancel the other out, and the remainder is the result of the roll. A second after the dice fall you know whether you succeeded and if anything interesting happened as a result - no need to consult with the DM to check if you rolled high enough.

WFRP: Roll the number of good dice on your sheet and bad dice according to your DM. You succeed if you have more successes than failures, good or bad things also happen if you have more advantage or disadvantage, and really good things happen if you roll a comet or really bad things happen if you roll a chaos star.

Literally EVERYONE I've played with or listened to a recording of playing has grasped what the symbols mean after about two-three rolls. Mainstream board games have dice with symbols on them. It's not that complicated.

You can call it going too far for me to say that it's intellectually dishonest to claim symbol dice are overly complicated, but I'm personally tired of hearing that argument. Just be honest and say you don't like it because it's different. Or even claim you like instantly knowing your roll probability. Don't try and claim that symbol dice are too convoluted, especially in the context of an RPG like 40K.

I will state that if FFG decided to go with the funky symbols and such I wouldn't have bought the book(neither would my group of 4) even thou I like to support FFG/40k.For every person that likes the new star wars system you'll have those that don't obviously.I'm just glad they polished the OW system and gave us this more "modernized" game.I think ThenDoctor makes a great point that DH2>DH1 in his opinion and mine.I've always been more fond oh DH verus the other lines.It's certainly not game breaking in the rule dept. but it is better.

WFRP 3e fans can tell you, during the year (or longer?) that the Warhammer proprietary dice were out of production, that if a company is going to make a game that relies on a unique component, that component had better be available if you want to be able to play the game.

1. And here we have the reason why this is a niche hobby with very little money behind it.

2. Do you know why proprietary means? It doesn't mean task-specific. And again, dice with symbols are no more mono-task than dice with numbers. You're free to make up different rules for what symbols mean.

3. It could easily be suggested that having to add a bunch of modifiers is more complicated and convoluted than just matching and canceling out symbols. Hell, symbol matching is probably closer to normal human processes in the first place.

It's okay to just say you don't like new things, you know.

I said I don't like proprietary dice systems because I find them unnecessary, and taken that as a license to have a go at me?

Right. Whatever.

...

You forgot to say BYE.

Be nice Nimsim, now you're just provoking him.

Both systems have their merits, let's just leave it at that.

I like green better, red sucks.

Yep I think the topic got side tracked a little,I have never played the Star Wars lines but I believe they also have their own forums to discuss what's good and what's not about that line.

Also how about we keep the personal comments to ourselves, everyone is entitled to an opinion? It's kind of what a forum is for after all.

I actually like the rules from Black Crusade onwards and find them a lot more organic and versatile than the older systems.

I don't really agree with the complaint for DH2 that it is too similiar to the Only War rules since I think the Only War rules were a big step up for a system that I already quite enjoyed. Also one of the complaints about the earlier lines was that although they were similiar they weren't really compatible and had enough differences to be frustrating trying to blend characters and dealing with rules variations from different lines.

With this system I can see players quite seamlessly introducing an undercover DH2 agent into a Black Crusade Warband or have Renegade Infiltrator or turn coat in an Only War regiment. It also is quite easy to move a character from one of the new lines to Black Crusade if they reach 100 corruption as there is no conversion necessary.

If something works go with it! I actually hope we get something similiar for Rogue Trader too!

The answer to the question in the OP was answered in literally the first reply, so at this point is it really off topic?

WFRP 3e fans can tell you, during the year (or longer?) that the Warhammer proprietary dice were out of production, that if a company is going to make a game that relies on a unique component, that component had better be available if you want to be able to play the game.

There's a dice app that costs like a dollar that allows you to roll any number of dice. Quite handy if you only have one set (or none, for that matter).

miles1739 have you actually played EotE? Because your post reads like someone who refuses to try it because it is different.

You forgot to say BYE.

On another note, what does everyone think of the modifications made to the second beta for DH2? I particularly like how there's a caveat for reccomending skill adaptations to different characteristics. I've pitched it to my players as "this is what is the reccomended characteristic for the standard use of the skill, but expect it to be modified based on circumstance." It's a liberating aspect of the new system that I quite enjoy.

I hope so because i'm gonna get my copy this weekend...

For the Emperor!

The answer to the question in the OP was answered in literally the first reply, so at this point is it really off topic?

WFRP 3e fans can tell you, during the year (or longer?) that the Warhammer proprietary dice were out of production, that if a company is going to make a game that relies on a unique component, that component had better be available if you want to be able to play the game.

There's a dice app that costs like a dollar that allows you to roll any number of dice. Quite handy if you only have one set (or none, for that matter).

miles1739 have you actually played EotE? Because your post reads like someone who refuses to try it because it is different.

Yeah if it's to endlessly preach how great another line is and continuously accuse anyone who doesn't like it of not being willing to try something new then it's quite off topic and rather pointless too. I'm sure there are plenty of people on the Star

Wars forums who would love to hear you go on and on about how awesome it is.....

There's a dice app that costs like a dollar that allows you to roll any number of dice. Quite handy if you only have one set (or none, for that matter).

Not everyone is willing, or even can, to buy an app on their phone. I personally hate electronic rollers, I don't trust them and think it takes away from the entire feel of pen and paper rpgs as a whole.

Note on the skill thing, I enjoy it as well. I think that's an important step forward in the rules as a whole. Reminds me of the first beta where if it was logical you could explain nearly any characteristic for a skill test.

Really depends on how buggy the final version is. We had a rather nasty bug in a numerical example regarding skill costs that made us houserule the entire thing, before one of our players finally reread it and said "Wait, guys, the text is okay, but the numbers are a typo".

All in all, the rules seem a step in the right direction, and for once, the roles seem genuinely balanced. Psykers, especially, seem more in tune with TT canon here, as they are unable to learn and do "everything", but eventually reach their maximum potential. Sometimes, forcing specialisation or power trade-offs is a good thing, and I find this a more than solid decision. It's excellent.

We've yet to actually reach a combat situation (we run an investigative game and my players are careful), so we don't know how the combat rules function in practise. I can't really comment there.

All in all, some things seem a step in the right direction, though two people in our round do lament the absence of trade skills and solid item creation rules, especially our adepta mechanica. We'd very much like to see something solid and workable for that in the final rules version. It's been missing in a workable, non-contradictory manner from all FFG publications I've seen so far and it's something players will simply get around to, for poisons, toxins, weapons mods and homemade gadgets. If you add that, then you finally might have a ruleset that just needs one book for the core rules, and people will be happy to play.

On another note, what does everyone think of the modifications made to the second beta for DH2? I particularly like how there's a caveat for reccomending skill adaptations to different characteristics. I've pitched it to my players as "this is what is the reccomended characteristic for the standard use of the skill, but expect it to be modified based on circumstance." It's a liberating aspect of the new system that I quite enjoy.

I'll admit that my experience with DH2.0 was a little different as my group play-tested the game before it went to Beta, but overall I was very happy with the changes from Beta 1 to Beta 2. We had a lot of fun play-testing the game, and have some amazing memories from those games, especially one that can be summarized by a single sentence uttered (with such a dejected tone) by our GM:

"You successfully electrocute the small child, convincing him that you are a psyker."

... but we also had a lot of frustrations. Fire that jumped around your body like it was alive, the fact that being on fire would mean that eventually you would explode (I took a Pyro Arbite for one of our tests, and had the "Now you're on fire!" psychic power, and so many combats ended with our opponents exploding!), the odd removal of scalability (how energy and explosive became one table that didn't really fit either), odd quirks of the rules where a staff wasn't a very good weapon, but if you broke that staff in two and used them as improvised weapons you suddenly became a friggin' ninja (or just go unarmed, which was often more effective than a staff). And I didn't like the AP/combat system because I saw it as a side-grade rather than a step forward.

I've seen a lot of complaints here and at 4Chan talking about how DH2.0 is just a copypaste of Only War. The strange thing is, no one's ever been able to say why that's a bad thing. Only War is a good rule-set*, based upon the already solid Black Crusade rule set, so why is another game using that already-established rule set such a cardinal sin? I never understood that.

Either way, I'm happy with DH2.0. I'm not getting it just yet but it'll eventually end up in my collection like every other FFG RPG book!

BYE

*Full disclosure: I wrote the Combat chapter and all the tank rules in that book.

Aaaand I am talking about the first beta apparently.

Well, drat.

I really liked it.

I've seen a lot of complaints here and at 4Chan talking about how DH2.0 is just a copypaste of Only War. The strange thing is, no one's ever been able to say why that's a bad thing. Only War is a good rule-set*, based upon the already solid Black Crusade rule set, so why is another game using that already-established rule set such a cardinal sin? I never understood that.

Speaking for myself, when I heard they were doing a new edition of Dark Heresy, I was excited that we'd be getting a new game. What it ended up being was another game I already own - Only War (which, incidentally, me and my group were not huge fans of). Given I already own a lot of DH1 books for flavor and the OW book for mechanics, what, exactly, is the draw of DH2 for someone like me?

What I wanted as a new game, not reheated aging mechanics I've grown tired of. That's why it's a bad thing. FFG could have made a new, interesting game. Instead they gave us more of the same. It's a missed opportunity.

Yeah but...at least we didn't get something like Warhammer Fantasy 3.0.

Personally i'm rather inspired by what i've seen so far. I never was much of a fan of the rules from the first BI release (and complained bitterly at the time).

I still don't like the core mechanics and the inherent bloat they create, but i'm definitely going to give DH2 a good go (after Iron Kingdoms).

I'm hoping much of the rules clutter and mess has been cleared up, to get them out of the way of the roleplaying experience.

Again CPS, that's largely the reactions they recieved on the first beta, rather than them wanting to release something similar to only war. Coincidentally the draw would be a new Sector's fluff no? If you only use DH1 for fluff.

The answer to the question in the OP was answered in literally the first reply, so at this point is it really off topic?

WFRP 3e fans can tell you, during the year (or longer?) that the Warhammer proprietary dice were out of production, that if a company is going to make a game that relies on a unique component, that component had better be available if you want to be able to play the game.

There's a dice app that costs like a dollar that allows you to roll any number of dice. Quite handy if you only have one set (or none, for that matter).

miles1739 have you actually played EotE? Because your post reads like someone who refuses to try it because it is different.

CPS,

About 6 months ago I played in only 2 sessions.I wasn't the game master.He tried his best to explain how the rules played out and I will be the first to admit he did a poor job.I can't fault the Star wars rules for that.After the second session 3 of us bowed out including myself.I'm certainly not saying the star wars rules are bad;but after my exprience they just werent for me.At some future date I might buy edge of the empire and take a better look myself.My cash flow says otherwise as I just recently bought DH2,DnD PHB,and Tome of decay.

I'm not targeting HBMC because he's a freelancer. You don't have to assume that anger at FFG is behind the reasoning for teasing someone that signs BYE on his posts. Besides which, he made comments I personally disagree with so I'm within my rights to disagree back as he is to disagree with mine. A discussion forum should be more than jut shooting opinions into the ether with the expectation that they will not be challenged in any way.

Also, the Only War rules continue to use the core d100 mechanic that scales poorly for the monsters and aliens in 40k. It continues to be a system of hunting for modifiers in order to have any chance of success. If it should be expected that someone will be taking an aimed shot, shooting at close range, using a laser sight, etc., why not just roll those into the basic math instead of expecting players to remember a bunch of fiddly modifiers? The psychic powers in only war are bland and the majority of them are variations on shooting a weapon at someone. Character creation was more open than previous lines but also requires more fiddly flipping back and forth between pages. Combat as a system received the vast majority of the rules and is the reason for having such low success rates. It's okay to have combat be the main focus for only war, but less so for dark heresy. The skill system was reduced down a lot but still ended up being essentially a binary resolution skill system with the only granularity being found on combat related skills.

The beta for dark heresy kept all of these issues while also introducing a chapter in investigation and subtlety that had players track subtlety at a very granular level while not giving any mechanical reason to do so. The psychic powers are incredibly boring. The skill system is still boring. The combat system is still overwrought. The insanity and corruption are a lot of convolution so that people can roll on a random table. The rules failed at the fundamental level of actually evoking the setting an theme of the game.

Also, the switch to Only War was in part met by praise from people worried about converting old material. It's just as much work to convert old material to this ruleset as it did to the original beta. You know what ruleset was very different from the previous but easy to convert to? Warhammer Fantasy Third? Every person online who has talked about converting old adventures or monsters to that system has said they were literally able to do it on the fly. Good luck with that in this system.

So is that a better explanation of what the problems are with this game using the same dated ruleset?

Only War was a huge step up from the awful fixed-progression DH/RT/DW systems and aptitudes were more adaptable and interesting than alignments. However, the base system still has a lot of flaws and irregularities that could've been fixed, and the direct copying of so many OW mechanics just felt sloppy, especially where they just blindly over-wrote item descriptions and other mechanics that were more sensible in the first beta (i.e. concussive, accurate, crippling, felling etc., the way sniper rifles/long-lasses were handled, separate perils tables for different power types, Fear, Unnatural Senses actually having an explanation for how it worked, being able to shoot non-pistol weapons into melee at the risk of getting counter-attacked, etc.), not to mention how most of the psychic powers were ported over straight from OW (so instead of the sort of reasonable rework of Warp Speed in the first beta we get "psy rating in unnatural ws/bs/agility" from BC/OW in beta 2 in a setting that does let psykers get the aptitudes necessary to make melee practical xp-wise, etc.). The wounds system in the first beta was sort of strange and not very practical (I'm still perplexed by why toughness was not converted from goofy magical super-armor+ into the multiplicative determinant of your wounds or something along those lines) and there were some other issues, but there were a lot of improvements and clarifications that just got blanket overridden. Short of the pretty good new character creation rules (DH via OW was basically do-able by just letting every character have their own custom 'regiment' if a little odd at times).